In this Hangout, we talk about social signals and their impact on SEO and search engine rankings. There has been a lot of debate about this topic and we want to add our two cents to the discussion.

Can social signals alone rank a site in Google search? Yes AND no…

In tests we have conducted, buying spam social signals (unrelated and/or from a non-interested crowd) to a well optimized post did not provide any SEO benefit.

But when we have targeted the proper audience with the same type of post and with the same level of optimization, we were able to rank the post. This is because it wasn’t just social signals that the post accrued. It also gained social links. Organic social links.

There is most certainly a difference. And when you combine natural (organic) social links with corresponding social signals (likes, +1’s, Retweets, etc), you also get targeted traffic to the post, which is also a positive ranking signal.

So the short answer is: IT DEPENDS. You can’t rank with SPAM social signals alone. But with targeted social signals, you most certainly can, but this is due in large part because of the natural links that will be created as a result.

Another positive effect that this social signals can have is the transfer of Domain Authority. Since most social media platforms have perfect (100) or near perfect Domain Authority, DA for your target property will increase. We have seen brand new sites increase from DA of 1 to a DA of 20+ in 30 days from just social signals alone!

I get asked by local business owners all the time “How can I use Google Plus to market my business?”

After answering this question a couple dozen times, I decided to create a training video on how to do this.

In this video, I show how to:

1. Locate G+ users based on geography, industry, or both.
2. Add people and businesses to custom circles.
3. Begin sharing valuable content to those circles.
4. Watch as people begin to add you back.
5. Gently pull them into your sales funnel.

The process I outline works every time and for any business. It doesn’t happen overnight, but you can expect to see results within 30 days if you stay consistent.

Once you’ve built your targeted circle base up, you’ll have a very specific audience at your fingertips. If done properly, you will have built rapport and be considered an authority for always sharing valuable resources.

This is when you can begin to introduce your products and/or services. Subtle calls to action work very well, such as “for more information come visit my website” or “we’re running a sale this weekend and you can find out more on our website”.

This way you’re not asking directly for the sale or appointment, but instead your providing additional information about what they’ve already proven to be interested in.

I have landed several marketing clients using this method and have helped some of my clients get similar results in their respective industries.

With the relatively new feature in YouTube, you can create a Live Event which uses the Google Hangouts On Air platform. The benefits to using these are:

You can optimize the Hangout ahead of time

You get the YouTube URL and the embed code before the broadcast

You can build links to it

You can embed it in a blog post or on a web page and then build links to those

With the ability to create the event ahead of time, you can manufacture a buzz around the event using a combination of links, embeds, and social signals. The more interest you create, the better they will rank.

I have been able to rank for some moderately competitive keywords by using this method. In fact, I’ve seen one of these rank within minutes of the broadcast going live.

In this video, I show how to enable the Live Event feature in YouTube and then give some suggestions on how to get the best results from syndication and promotion.

Another way to think about it is it’s kind of like a measurement of a domain’s popularity and what it can get away with.

Google sets rules that websites must pass to appear high in the search results. A site with little or no DA, such as with a brand new site, has the strictest set of rules that it must follow.

Conversely, a site with a really high DA generally has much more leeway since a level of trust or authority has already been established.

Consider this, 3 of the most popular sites on the web are WP.com, FB, & YouTube. They each have a perfect DA which is a score of 100. That’s why it’s so much easier to rank a WP.com blog, a FB page, or a YT video (relative to a new webpage).

We know that you can build links to these types of properties much more aggressively without having to worry too much about getting slapped. We can build way more links, way faster, and be much more targeted with our anchor text and these properties will rank very quickly.

Try that with a new website and you’re almost guaranteed to get punished, if not de-indexed.

So in other words, the higher the DA, the more abuse the property can withstand.

2. How is this different from Page Rank?

Well if you mean Page Rank, that is Google’s proprietary scoring system which has been the Gold Standard for SEO purposes for many years.

PR is an older scoring system, in fact it was Google’s first. It uses similar signals to determine the importance of a web page. PR was a page based metric which is similar to Moz’s Page Authority measurement.

The problem with PR is that it has been historically easy to manipulate, whereas DA isn’t.

3. How does DA influence rankings?

All things being equal, a page on a high DA site will outrank a page on a site with low DA.
Again, we go back to the common knowledge of how simple it is to rank a WP.com page or a YT video.

So the trick is to learn how DA effects how a page rnks and how we can utilize this knowledge to our advantage.

4. How can Semantic Mastery help others use use Domain Authority better?

We have some case studies being developed that go into more detail and we will also show how to take advantage of the perfect and near perfect DA sites for our own benefit.

Quentin: So, Bradley, most of our listeners will have heard of siloing a website, but just to be clear what exactly is siloing?

Bradley: That’s a question we get a lot. Siloing is a way to build a website by stacking keywords into a theme or silo. In other words, it’s a way to organize data into a theme, also known as clustering. It works like this. You take the highest level keyword that you want to rank for, which is usually the most competitive and you make that the silo heading or the landing page or the top of the silo. Then you create content using related keywords, LSI keywords, generally more long tail, less competitive. And you place that content within the corresponding silo. The idea is to categorize the content to reinforce a specific theme which then helps all of the content to rank with the desired terms.

Quentin: Okay, well, I talked at the start about the fact that there are two basic types. These are called physical and virtual silos, but what’s that mean exactly?

Bradley: The difference between a physical and a virtual silo is really in the URL structure. A physical silo can be seen in the actual structure to the URL fort to the page in the post on the site. You’ll see the link set up as parent and child pages or it can also be done with categories if you’re using posts instead of pages. So the supporting articles would be the child pages of the parent or the silo heading. A virtual silo is accomplished using internal links, but not within the actual physical URL structure. For example, from the silo heading you would link to the supporting articles and then from within the content of the supporting articles you would link back up to the silo heading. And if it makes sense, you can also link to other supporting articles within that silo. You just wouldn’t see that in the silo structure in the actual URL to the content itself.

Quentin: Pretty good stuff, eh? So we know that Semantic mastery is all about testing real concepts, not theory and then seeing what happens. Can you let us know what you’ve discovered, especially how non siloed sites compared to siloed sites? And more importantly which types of silo actually win?

Bradley: What we have discovered is that siloed tend to rank much faster and easier than a non siloed. But it’s more than that, it’s also more visitor friendly. When you stack concepts or themes together in a very fluid manner, it makes it easier to understand for both human, or visitors, and machines, which would be search engines. Siloed sites when done correctly rank with only a fraction of inbound links than a non siloed site would require. What I’ve seen through my own testing of both physical and virtual siloed sites, tend to rank equally as well. I think for machine purposes, it a little bit stronger to have a physical silo method, but as far as for ranking purposed alone, I’ve seen both of them rank equally as well.

Quentin: Yes, yes. I mean information like this is priceless. So how exactly is Semantic Mastery going to deliver results like this to the world? And how are you going to demonstrate the things that we really need to know? The step by step processes involved in creating stuff like this?

Bradley: One of our major case studies of the year is going to be this exact topic here. Where we’re going to basically create a case study using three different websites that we’re going to start from scratch. All things being equal, we’re going to try to keep all things equal as far as using a kind of a brand-able type domain name so that it’s not an exact match to a name, not a keyword registered name. We are going to pick a specific niche and we’re going to target that one niche. And we’re going to build three sites around it. One which will be a traditional or old school type site, a non siloed site. And then we’re going to have two siloed sites. One being a physical silo method and one being a virtual silo method. And we’re going to try to keep all of the inbound links the same, relatively close anyways in social signals. All of the on page factors will be the same other than the silo structure itself. And we’re going to track the results. And throughout the entire process from setting up the sites to the link building that we do and social signals and all that. We are going to record it all, document it via video and share our results.

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